


The Sea of Statues - Chapter 2

by c2t2



Series: The Sea of Statues [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Cuddling, Gen, M/M, fancy words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-11-10 17:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20855207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/c2t2/pseuds/c2t2
Summary: The Straw Hats discuss the Sea of Statues and Zoro plays a game during watch. Finally, the crew lands on a mysterious island...





	The Sea of Statues - Chapter 2

“Statues? Oh my, have we really gone into _that_ part of the Florian Triangle?” Robin sounded legitimately surprised.

“What part is that?” Nami asked.

“The entire Florian Triangle is notorious for ships disappearing - over a hundred every year - but one part of the Triangle is especially strange. The island of Manoa is located somewhere in the Florian Triangle, and the waters around it are called the Sea of Statues.”

“Well I’ve heard of Manoa,” Nami said, “_Everyone’s_ heard of Manoa.” There was a round of nods from the crew. “But I’ve never heard of the Sea of Statues before.”

“It’s one of the ways the island defends itself,” Franky said.

Before he could finish whatever he was going to say, Luffy popped into the conversation with a predictable, “What’s Manoa?”

“I can’t _believe_ you’re asking that,” Nami sighed in disbelief, “Manoa is the richest island in the world!“

“Never heard of it,” Luffy stuck a finger up his nose.

“Manoa is one of the most mysterious places ever!” Usopp took over with a dramatic flourish, “It is a legend throughout the four Blues! It is said to be an island that is impossible to reach unless invited. Everything and everyone from that island is blessed and perfected by the gods!” He returned to a normal voice, “Even you should have heard of it, Luffy. I can’t believe anyone has grown up without hearing it mentioned.”

Luffy shrugged and pouted.

“And those of us from nearby islands like Water 7 know one additional fact – that Manoa is protected by the Statue Guardian,” Franky added, “The statues happen to those who try to reach it without the permission of the gods.”

“Manoa is not on any of the log pose paths through the Grand line, so the only way to reach it is with an Eternal Pose. Anyone who forcibly takes a pose from their traders ends up like this,” Robin gestured at the nearby ghost ship.

“Wait a minute,” Nami interjected, pointing at the Marine ghost ship, “are you saying that someone who ranks high enough to command a _Marine warship _tried to steal a Manoan eternal pose?”

“I’ve seen it myself,” Franky lifted his shades to look at Nami to show his sincerity, “Lotta corrupt Marines in the world, and with Manoa’s reputation... Well, plenty of Marines have tried to bully an eternal pose off Manoan traders when they stop at Water 7. It seems likely that throughout history, some of them have succeeded.”

“And then they all got turned into statues?” Usopp asked.

Nami shook her head, “Can’t be. We saw maybe ten statues, total, on the entire warship. Even with the barest minimum crew, it would take thirty men to run a ship like that, and that doesn’t even take into consideration that those warships are always packed with ordinary Marines who are only there as fighters.”

“That fits what I’ve seen,” Franky agreed, “I’ve salvaged ghost ships from the Sea of Statues that get towed in to Water 7, and there are usually only a couple of statues aboard. Sometimes none at all. Nowhere near enough for a crew.”

Usopp started to twitch nervously, “Somehow, that’s even creepier than if entire crews were turning into statues.”

“Going into every detail about Manoa would take forever,” Nami waved her hand dismissively, “Let’s keep following the path of that treasure. The bird obviously didn’t come here. We’ve wasted enough time on this dead end. Now, weigh anchor!” she called out.

The crew continued to follow Nami’s directions. The Florian Triangle fog became so thick that even if they were passing by other ghost ships, they hadn’t been able to see them. It felt like they were sailing blind, but Nami’s confidence in her calculations never wavered, and they pushed on until it started to get too dark to safely keep going.

***

After dropping anchor for the night, everybody else went to bed and Zoro retired to the gym in the crow’s nest for a nighttime workout, figuring there was no point in playing lookout during watch when the fog was so thick he wouldn’t be able to see anything coming until it was right on top of them.

Zoro was doing weighted handstand pushups, and planned to reach a thousand before collapse.

The hardest part of training like he did wasn’t just the physical exertion, but the exertion combined with the endless tedium. He had gotten so used to counting his reps that it took no mental effort anymore, and his mind had started trying to reach for something else to do. Recently he’d started coming up with ways to entertain himself. He had one in mind for today.

As they were waiting around in Water 7, Chopper had said a string of words to Zoro that the swordsman could not understand, but seemed to be something medical related. The words were “a diagnosis of progressive trauma-induced topographical disorientation.” If he didn’t know any better Zoro would think Chopper was just messing with him and had made up a bunch of nonsense words to see if he’d fall for it.

But there were a few reasons that couldn’t be true.

First off, Chopper was sincere to a fault, especially about medicine, and would never pull pranks in general unless it was Usopp’s idea. And this didn’t seem like an Usopp prank.

Second, upon first hearing the words, the shit cook had laughed so hard he choked on and nearly swallowed his cigarette. Pity he hadn’t suffocated on that disgusting thing.

Last, Zoro actually did know one of those words. ‘Trauma’ was a (totally unnecessary) fancy word that meant ‘injury’. Zoro was pretty sure all the crew’s injuries from Enies Lobby were healed, so even that didn’t help him figure out what Chopper meant.

Well, he supposed he could take all this extra time while training to think through it. He could try to use the parts of the words to figure out the meanings. It was worth a try.

“A diagnosis of progressive trauma-induced topographical disorientation.”

First, “progressive.” He wasn’t _certain_, but it was very similar to the word “progress,” which he knew meant going forward. Same with “diagnosis.” It was very close to the word “diagonal”, so maybe it was a related word. Diagonal meant slanted, and progress meant forward. So “Diagnosis of Progressive…” meant going forward at a slanted angle. Simple enough.

“Trauma” meant injury. He already knew that. 

He couldn’t think of what “induced” might mean, although the word sounded familiar, so he skipped over that one for now. That brought him to “topographical.” Well, he knew what a graph was – a graph was turning math into a picture. And graphic was another word for a picture, so it probably had something to do with an image. Topo- was another dead end, at least for now. Next was “disorientation.” He knew that “Orient” meant East, and dis- meant “not-”, so disorient meant not-east. West, then?

“A diagnosis of progressive trauma-induced topographical disorientation.” – Slanted forward, injury-something, something-picture Westward.

No, that couldn’t be right.

He ought to try to figure out the missing parts. Zoro was somewhat confident in his guesses so far, but he would have to stretch logic for these last ones and they would probably be wrong but he was going to go for it. First he had an idea for induce. Deuce was a word for two, usually used in cards. “In-” was another word-fragment that meant “not,” just like “dis-” did in “disorient.” So in-duce might mean “not-two”. What wasn’t two? Well, _one_. It had to mean one, because anything more than two also had two in it, but the only thing that wasn’t two and didn’t _contain_ two (yet still existed) was one.

The only idea he had for Topo- was the word “Topic,” which probably wasn’t right but it was all he had. Unless it was even simpler? Maybe it was just “Top,” meaning the highest part of something, and the extra O didn’t mean anything.

“A diagnosis of progressive trauma-induced topographical disorientation.” – “Slanted forward injury-one highestpicture westward.”

Well, he obviously screwed up something somewhere. More importantly, his set of a thousand was done. Zoro toweled off, opened the trapdoor, and climbed his way down to the deck.

His watch was nowhere near over, but Zoro was taking a rest between sets, so he wandered into the library and discovered both Robin and Chopper were up late reading. This wasn’t a surprise, since insomnia regularly happened to some of the Strawhat crew, depending on the kind of lives they had led before joining Luffy.

In fact, it was fortunate for Luffy that he was made of rubber, considering his habit of climbing into bed with one of his sleeping nakama every night. Some of the crew had pretty bad nights once in a while - especially those with enemies that would attack them while they slept. More than once Luffy would have had his neck broken by Robin or his skull caved in by Nami or Chopper if he’d been made of normal flesh.

Zoro had needed to defend himself straight out of a deep sleep plenty of times, but that experience didn’t result in attacking when someone approached him while he slept. Instead, Zoro had trouble getting to sleep at all at night (part of why he slept so much during the day) and even in his deepest sleep he was always vigilant for any hostile intent or foreign presence. (This would surprise his nakama, as people his subconscious deemed “safe” couldn’t wake him even if they tried.)

As a silver lining, at least Chopper’s insomnia was lucky for Zoro tonight.

“Oi Chopper,” Zoro said as he approached the little reindeer, “I’ve got a question for you.”

***

About five minutes later, it seemed obvious that word games weren’t one of Zoro’s strong points. It turned out he had only gotten one of the words right, and another one of them half-right. “A diagnosis of progressive trauma-induced topographical disorientation.” Diagnosis had nothing to do with diagonal, but was doctor-speak for telling you what’s wrong with you. Zoro had gotten Progressive right, at least. Trauma he already knew. Induced he had gotten completely wrong, but once Chopper explained it to him, Zoro remembered actually knowing the word “induce” already (it was a totally pointless word that meant “to cause”). It turned out “topographical” meant “terrain,” making it yet another pointless word that was completely unnecessary. Finally, disorientation was the one he had gotten partially right. It seemed Orient had two meanings; it could mean both East and something like “knowing where you are.”

Zoro barely held himself back from asking Chopper to next time say, “Your brains are scrambled from head injury, and it makes you lost.” But he didn’t for two reasons. The first was that Zoro did _not_ have a problem with getting lost, that was a pack of lies made up by his nakama. The second reason was that the word game had kept him going while powering through a thousand-rep set, making it useful. But he certainly wasn’t going to ask Chopper to give him more ridiculous strings of words to guess at. That had been quite enough.

The second set of a thousand seemed to pass much more slowly. The third took approximately forever. After the fourth, Zoro was reaching the critical point in the workout – the one where the tiny corner of his mind that wasn't completely under his control yet started to wonder if he should give up his dream and become a farmer because at least he wouldn’t have to do this anymore.

Increasing the number of reps he could do before reaching that point meant that he was making progress.

At last, watch was over.

Zoro could finally go to bed, leaving the crow's nest and clambering down into the boys’ room.

In the dim light he glanced around, wondering whose body heat their captain had ended up stealing tonight.

He found Luffy snuggled into Usopp’s back. The young captain’s arms were wrapped around his sharpshooter, his hands burrowed under Usopp’s overalls to warm his hands directly on the skin of his sniper’s chest and stomach.

Zoro felt a smirk trying to take over his face before he caught himself. No. It was not cute; they were not cute. No.

Even if they were, Zoro had no use for cuteness. Instead of noticing the cute, Zoro was feeling… glad that it wasn’t him. Yeah, that was the reason.

Luffy rarely stayed in his own bed all night. Not only was the guy clingy and invasive in general, but once the rubber boy finally settled down, all the heat usually generated from his constant movement and insanely high metabolism suddenly dropped off a cliff and his hands and feet turned into ice – ice which he warmed on his crewmates. Zoro didn’t know whether it had anything to do with Luffy’s devil fruit or his relatively small size or just his usual complete disregard for the way reality is supposed to work. Either way, surprise ice-cold hands were an unwelcome way to wake up, and unpleasant in general unless they were near a summer island. Sometimes it was also accompanied by legs wrapping around the unfortunate victim’s hips so Luffy could bury his feet between their thighs, and on one truly nightmarish occasion had stuffed his feet down the back of Zoro’s pants to warm his icy toes on the swordsman’s butt. (Zoro had promptly thrown him halfway through the wall.)

So the thing he was feeling was _relief_ that Luffy’s victim was one of the others. Problem solved.

They were not cute.

Zoro flopped heavily into his bunk, smirking in satisfaction at Sanji’s irritated grumble from the bunk above him, and immediately fell asleep.

***

The next day they continued chasing the bird, following Nami’s calculations. Zoro was starting to wonder how long they were going to keep going like this. How long would it take for Nami to give up this path?

When they reached the edge of the Florian Triangle?

When they reached the Calm Belt?

When their supplies ran out?

Oh well, it wasn’t Zoro’s job to worry about such things. Luffy had the authority to overrule Nami, but he seemed content to let her do her thing. Otherwise the navigation was Nami’s problem and making the supplies last as long as they needed to was up to the crap cook. Zoro’s only job was to get stronger, along with occasionally Luffy-wrangling.

What he had done on Water 7, keeping the crew functional, that hadn’t been his job. That had been a _condition_ for his continued presence on the crew. His being a Strawhat Pirate was _conditional_. Zoro had to be able to leave if being on the crew started to hinder his goal.

That kind of true, unwavering friendship was one of the things he had given up when he decided to chase his dream at all costs. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to prevent them from falling apart. He liked it here. He wanted to stay.

Now, in the aftermath of that event, Usopp was still a little shaky and uncertain of his place on the crew.

They bore him no ill will for what had happened at Water 7. The sniper had been a damn fool, but he had done what he thought was right. When Robin was in trouble he’d stood by the crew in the very heart of enemy territory, and in the end he’d been able to set aside his pride and apologize for what he’d done.

Zoro was glad he was back.

Luffy’s voice boomed excitedly from the Sunny’s figurehead, “Hey guys, I see an island!”

***

The thick fog seemed to abruptly vanish about half a kilometer from the island’s shore. If it continued around the whole island, it would make this place the sole sunny spot in the Florian Triangle surrounded by a ring of purple gloom.

“Is this where the bird went?” Chopper asked excitedly.

“The path led us straight here,” Robin replied, “So it seems possible.”

“The log pose isn’t reacting,” Nami said, “This island must be off the normal routes.”

“Well, let’s draw straws already to decide who goes ashore!” Usopp urged.

Chopper, Zoro, and Sanji were chosen as the landing crew and climbed aboard the Mini Merry, leaving Luffy’s disappointed wailing behind as they set out toward the shore. They landed on a picturesque beach which sloped gently up to meet a hardwood forest. There were no signs of human inhabitants – no garbage, no structures – and they pushed their way inland until they stumbled on a trail.

The width and smoothness of the dirt trail indicated it was human-made, so they followed it inland, Chopper prancing along happily in Walk Point while the crap cook mumbled things that Zoro couldn’t be arsed to listen to.

Eventually the forest cleared away into a green meadow in which rested a smallish but beautifully built cabin. As they approached, they could see a woman of indeterminate age sitting on the porch doing some kind of embroidery. That was normal enough, but the part that didn’t match the scene is that she was wearing what looked like a ball gown, one that was so fancy and richly decorated that even Zoro noticed it. It was the kind of gown usually seen in formal evening parties, not midmorning porch sitting.

As they approached, the woman leapt to her feet with a small gasp, but then shakily curtsied, though they could see her sneaking looks up at them from her bowed position, deep caution in her eyes.

“Welcome, strangers! The treasure is to the north of the island. Please do not kill anyone, and leave the eternal pose behind when you go.”

“Pardon me mademoiselle, could you perhaps answer a few-”

The door shut as the woman fled indoors.

“Why did she run inside?” Zoro asked, addressing no one specifically, “We know she’s in there, so if we were hostile all she would have done is trapped herself and pissed us off.

“Don’t insult a lady like that!” Sanji snapped, “There might be some kind of underground escape route. Or she could be retrieving a weapon to defend herself.”

“We should move on,” Chopper suggested nervously.

They passed by the house and followed the path. As it traveled further inland the path widened to become a road, paved in a way Zoro had never seen before. The three of them stopped and stared at the road surface for a minute.

“It’s a tessellation.” Chopper breathed in wonder. Stones in contrasting shades of gray had been cut into precise shapes and placed together in [an elaborate pattern that looked like overlapping circles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truncated_trihexagonal_tiling#/media/File:1-uniform_6b.png). The very edges of the road were a border made out of some other kind of material that was shaped to keep the stones in place on the inside but leave clean, straight edges on the outside.

Maybe some of the others would appreciate the road, but its impressiveness was mostly lost on Zoro. Wouldn’t normal cobblestones have been a lot easier?

Well, the fanciness of the road combined with how well-swept it was told Zoro that they were finally getting somewhere. Soon enough, a small group of houses appeared through the trees.

It was the _number_ of houses that was small. The houses themselves were not.

The forest gave way to elaborate landscaping surrounding the kinds of houses that should only exist in a density of one per town. They were all structured completely different, one having a round tower on one corner and turrets, and its nextdoor neighbor (hundreds of meters away) looked like a many-tiered Wano mansion, and the one next to that had a bunch of Roman columns, and the one after _that_ looked like [a big rectangle made out of a bunch of other rectangles](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plaza_del_Mercado_de_Ponce#/media/File:Plaza_del_Mercado_Isabel_II_in_Ponce,_PR_\(IMG_2684\).jpg).

The landscaping was similarly different near each house. Some of the house owners seemed to like flowers, one of them had an actual hedge maze, and the Wano-style house had a Zen rock garden

Zoro was now certain that their landing crew had been badly chosen. The others would have had more appreciation for all this.

Just then, a child ran giggling out of the hedge maze. The little urchin was so dirty it was hard to tell much about him. His hair all stuck up on one side – Zoro didn’t know if that was deliberate – and his clothes were grass stained with the pant cuffs and sleeves rolled up.

“Ah!” He yelped when he saw the group, coming up short so dramatically he left actual skid marks in the dirt. “Invaders! _Ohhhh_…”

That last utterance was an abrupt distraction from his initial shock, as he caught sight of Chopper in his Walk Point.

The child ran up to them with surprising speed. “Can I pet it?” he asked Sanji, eyes sparkling.

“Rey! Get back here!” came an approaching voice out of the hedge maze, “Haven’t I told you not to…”

A young woman in work clothes and a dirt-smudged face barreled out of the hedge maze and drew up short in an imitation of the young boy, skidding and all. “Oh no! Invaders! _Rey_!”

The boy startled abruptly, “A-ah right! Uh. Welcome, strangers! The treasure is to the north. P-please don’t kill anyone, and leave the eternal pose behind?”

He turned and bolted off as quickly as he had arrived.

“Hey wait!” Chopper yelled, clearly as confused as the rest of them, “Ah, man! He’s gone. What kind of a place is this!?” he shouted, addressing that last comment at the world in general.

“What do you mean?” the woman asked, sounding baffled, as she was backing away slowly. “Obviously you made it to Manoa.”

**Author's Note:**

> Notes as always in my squizbee livejournal


End file.
